Interview - HHS Media Specialist

Attendees

Jadyn Campbell, Jimi Waters

Jadyn Campbell: Will you just state your name and title for me?

Jimi Waters: I'm Jimi Waters, media specialist at Harlem High School.

Jadyn Campbell: Okay, and what type of degree is required for your position?

Jimi Waters: Not necessarily a degree but a certification so I was a Spanish teacher for 13 years and then
I moved into the learning commons and I had to go back to Georgia Southern to get my library media
specialist certification. I could have made it into another degree but I just simply took the courses for
certification.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah, right. What are your main job responsibilities?

Jimi Waters: What should they be or what are they?

Jadyn Campbell: Oh yeah.

Jimi Waters: As media specialist I am in charge of course the collection of the books, the weeding, the
maintenance, the collaboration to make sure we have resources for all of the right classes and with that
comes the technology some of the laptops now I share that with our technology specialist.

Jadyn Campbell: (Intercom comes on in the background) I'm sorry.

Jimi Waters: No. It's okay. (Intercom continues) She is so cheerful.

Jadyn Campbell: She does a great job at it.

Jimi Waters: High school lunchrooms are not so cheerful. Other things that have been added are like fixed
assets having to do the inventory for the building. I wish we could focus more on teacher collaboration
and reading initiatives. Sometimes that takes a backseat.

Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: My media clerk is awesome. She is a huge reader so she does a lot of stuff with the kids
getting them motivated to read and participate more.

Jadyn Campbell: How do you feel like you're meeting the needs of faculty and staff during remote
learning so that digital learning day coming up.

Jimi Waters: Our main thing number one is to make sure that all the kids have what they need in their
hand. So making sure every kid has a device, making sure each household has internet access.
Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: So this year Verizon has given us hotspots. So we're going to be able to give those, check
those out to families with no Internet service and then the other thing is making sure that the teachers
able to record and make it effective.

Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: Not all of them are able to do that. So getting the things in the kids hands, making sure that
the teachers are able to be effective in their videos and their activity so it's not just you know, and then
making those two things work together. So like on digital learning day this is kind of like the call center.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah.

Jimi Waters: So if there's an issue with technology that they call my extension and I try to do what we can
to make it work.

Jadyn Campbell: Right, do you guys post anything for the parents? I know our school has to post a few
things on our Facebook.

Jimi Waters: Yeah, the county, the county gives us some things that we have to use their images and
things like that.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah.

Jimi Waters: But we have a Google site that has frequently asked questions, all that kind of stuff. So we
just had that out there and then we shoot it out in a mass text to everybody saying go here. Let me know if
a device, that kind of thing.

Jadyn Campbell: Right, what are your typical daily job activities on your job. So what do you know you are
going to do when you walk in the door every day.

Jimi Waters: The first thing I do every morning is I check Google Password Issues So if a kid has any kind
of issues with their login we have QR codes around the school. So that's my first login. My second login is
to all the media specialist specialists get a, it's called a One Sync Report and it's a report from the county
of all new accounts new students. So I will check that for any Harlem students, activate them send it to
their teachers.

Jimi Waters: Then next is we have something called peer facilitation and that is basically, teacher’s aids,
teacher helpers and they report to the Learning Commons to get their jobs. So we get the kids, you know,
where they're supposed to be with their tasks and then, right now, right now it's fixed asset audit stuff.
That's consumed my world for the past month, but Miss Huffman and I will start like right now we are
going to do dynamic shelving. We’re going to try it. Have you heard of that yet?

Jadyn Campbell: No, I haven't heard of that.

Jimi Waters: So that’s our process this morning. So first we, we genrefied everything. We don’t use the
Dewey Decimal anymore.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah, we don’t either.

Jimi Waters: So, but now we're going to dynamic shelving where instead of all the books being spines,
spines, spine, spine it's more of like everything is a display.

Jadyn Campbell: Oh wow.

Jimi Waters: instead of having all the books this way, some will be this way, some will be this way, some
will be this way some will be open and so when you walk in, you'll be able to see a lot more. So hopefully
we're hoping that'll get more circulation going, but that's what we're doing now.

Jadyn Campbell: Did you have to weed a lot of books before you did that?

Jimi Waters: Yeah. Well I had to weed alot whenever we got here, whenever I got here because they
changed…What was it called? It was called Sax and we used to have to have a certain number of books
per student. so, we were keeping, not we, the previous person was keeping books that were old and junkie
because they had to have a copy count.. When they got rid of that we were able to get rid of so much.
Then the learning commons movement hit to where they only want books on the perimeter. So we
weeded encyclopedias and old old stuff. But instead of weeding to do this, we're finding that we need to
add more because it's showing us like our, our scary stories and our horror sector is tiny but our fantasy is
humongous.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah.

Jimi Waters: So it’s showing us what we need to add to.

Jadyn Campbell: So, with that, do you have a budget that you control and how do you make your
decisions on selecting resources for that budget?

Jimi Waters: I don't control the budget. The county gives it to us and it's broken down into like what
should be printables, what should be books and but they are flexible with that so if I don't need technology
that year, I can buy a lot more books.

Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: But what I do is reach out to parents or reach out to businesses and then we have a coffee
station, our old catalog cart is a coffee station and kids buy coffee as a little fundraiser. They stop and get
a muffin and coffee in the mornings and that money goes in too. Now years that I want like I know if I
want something big the next year I can request it in the budget the year before but I haven't had to do that
too, too much.

Jadyn Campbell: Okay. Have you had an opportunity to impact technology integration in your school, like
with the teachers?

Jimi Waters: Not as much as I want to because we have what's called an ITS, instructional Technology
Specialist.

Jadyn Campbell: That's right.

Jimi Waters: So, she is the one that works on actually bringing apps an games and activities into the
classroom. But me and the TSS, we're the ones that work with the principal with saying where actual
devices are needed.
Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: So it's kind of like a four person team.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah. So the next question is does your school have a technology committee? But it
sounds like maybe all four of you kind of work together in that aspect.

Jimi Waters: Yeah. The technology specialist, me, the instructional technology specialist, and then the
principal who is in charge of you know ordering and making sure that extra money goes to where..

Jadyn Campbell: Right. Do you guys have like a digital learning team with the teachers?

Jimi Waters: We do. We have a digital learning team that kind of we cross it with our media selection
group. So it's just a few of us teachers and I try to get one from all the departments. It doesn’t always
work that way. But yeah, that’s us.

Jadyn Campbell: Okay, and, what do you think is the best part of your job?

Jimi Waters: I think the best part for me is and I'm just comparing it to being a classroom teacher, when I
was a Spanish teacher I got to see this amount of kids and most of them were kids that were going to
college, because that's a college prep pathway but now, I get to, I get to interact with all of them. I feel like,
I get to impact more kids that may not go to their teacher, may not go their counselor, and not that we're
trying to replace anybody. I just We have a bigger. That. Lot more kids, a lot more. Like different kids kids. I
never would have been able to Curve or hill in the classroom.

Jadyn Campbell: Right. Right.

Jimi Waters: I just think we have a bigger classroom that can impact a lot more kids, a lot more like
different kids. Kids I never would have been able to serve or help in the classroom.

Jadyn Campbell: Right. I accidentally skipped over one but you kind of answered it already with the
technology decisions, you said you go to your principal first and he kind of gives the final approval.

Jimi Waters: Yeah.

Jadyn Campbell: That was all. What do you think is the most challenging part? So you said the best:
What's the hardest part to you?

Jimi Waters: Well, I don't think it's specific to being a media specialist or in the learning commns. I think
our biggest problem right now in education everywhere is just the apathy and getting the kid’s motivated.
The kids they don't want to participate in stuff. We're having to cancel stuff that we've done for 30 years,
because they just don’t want to do it. So, to add on to that of here let's try to read, try to..

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah.

Jimi Waters: That’s what we're struggling with is just getting like, pulling teeth to get them to participate
and stuff. That's our struggle.

Jadyn Campbell: Right. And then do you have teachers that come visit the library with their classes?
Jimi Waters: All the time. Now, it's a little less this year because we did a huge push at the end of last year
to get as many devices in the classrooms. So, this used to almost be like a computer lab that they would
sign up to bring their classes to use the computers. They don't use them as much because they've got so
many.

Jadyn Campbell: Right.

Jimi Waters: So we work closer with the ELA classes. So we'll do like speed dating with books. That kind
of stuff, but that's always kind of more geared to the lit classes.

Jadyn Campbell: Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's all. So, I'm gonna go ahead and stop recording.